Confidential Agent (Warner Bros.) (1945)

Lauren Bacall Modeled Her Way To Screen Fame Irom fashion pictures to motion pictures — via a season of seasoning on the Broadway stage — is the opening chapter in the career story of svelte, slender and blonde Lauren Bacall, currently co-starring with Charles Boyer in Warners’ “Confidential Agent,” at the Strand. Miss Bacall has a face that is easy to look at, hard to forget. Mrs. Howard Hawks, wife of the director, saw it looking out at her from the pages of a national fashion magazine, and was greatly impressed. So was Hawks, when his wife called his attention to it. Stil Bacall 72 Mat 206 — 30c Lauren Bacall, who took movie audiences by storm in her film debut in "To Have And Have Not," is co-starred opposite Charles Boyer in Warners’ exciting new drama, "Confidential Agent,'' currently at the Strand. The director wrote to New York for information about Miss Bacall and it wasn’t long before Miss Bacall herself ar rived in Hollywood, ‘“‘testcontract” in hand. In the flesh, she looked even better than her pictures on the magazine pages. Furthermore, Hawks discovered the photogenic Lauren had a background of stage training and experience. A screen test proved she possessed acting talent, and Hawks signed her to a personal contract. Jack L. Warner, executive producer of Warner Bros. pictures, saw a subsequent test of the former model and budding Broadway actress and suggested she be given one of the two feminine leads Opposite Humphrey Bogart in the picture “To Have And Have Not.” It was her first screen part, and it automatically put her in the featured actress class, establishing her as a potential star. Her contract is now shared by Warner Bros. Miss Bacall was born in New York City on Sept. 16, 1924. She is the daughter of parents who trace their American ancestry back several generations. Her early education was received in a_ private girl’s school: Later, she attended, and was graduated from, Julia Richman High School. She was just fifteen when she 6 received her diploma. Bette Davis is her favorite actress, and the inspiration for her own acting ambitions. By the time she was graduated from Manhattan’s Julia Richman High School, she’d seen enough Davis pictures to realize it took training to be an actress. . She received some of that necessary training during a season’s study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, got more of it by playing parts in two short-lived plays. The first was called “Johnny Two-By-Four.” . It never reached Broadway. The second, “Franklin Street,” had an extremely brief run. A social introduction to one of the editors of Harper's Bazaar led the then eighteenyear-old Miss Bacall into the modeling detour that proved a short-cut to a motion picture acting career. She modeled fashions, and was in only a few issues of the magazine when the query from Hollywood. arrived. Miss Bacall signed her contract with Hawks in May of 1943. Then she encountered the first of the delays she had been eager to eliminate. Hawks was is no hurry to launch his new discovery on a career. He chose to coach her while waiting for the proper debut role to put her immediately into the leagues.” sé Can big Married Stars Give Bit Player New-Type Role Barbara Stanwyck, Alexis Smith and other happily married but superstitious young women on the Warner Bros. star roster, have brought Marvelle Andre a more or less continuous job in pictures. Miss Andre, an extra and bit player subject to studio call, has appeared, in part, in more pictures than has either of the better known. stars mentioned. “In part,’’ in fact, because only her hands are photographed. Stars Like Rings Miss Stanwyck, Miss Smith and a number of other feminine stars do not like to remove their wedding rings, even for picture purposes. So, when they are supposed to write letters, or wring their hands or wash dishes—as Miss Stanwyck did recently, for example in “Christmas In Connecticut,’ —it is Miss Andre— or at least her hands—photographed in the closeups. Lauren Bacall, the new Mrs. Humphrey Bogart, did not want to remove her brand new wedding ring for scenes with Charles Boyer in Warners’ “Confidential Agent,” now at the Strand. Her wedding ring, however, is not a plain gold band but an elaborate gold chain ring and both Director Shumlin and head cameraman fames Wong Howe agreed that it would not look like a wedding ring in the picture. However she had no closeup scenes of her hands and consequently wears her wedding band throughout the picture. According to the Warner Bros. insert department, where letter writing scenes are filmed in closeup, Miss Andre has beautiful hands which makes her a fit successor to other young women like Fern Berry and Augusta Bovier who have performed similar services in years past. Miss Stanwyck and Miss Smith have pretty hands too—under their tell-tale wedding rings. Still 651-84 ‘Agent’ Requires Vast Amount of Research Diligent workers in Warner Bros.’ research depart ment, headed by scholarly, encyclopaedic Dr. Herman Lissauer, have discovered that as far back as 1788, it was not uncommon for a young man to whistle at — or to — a doll, or a young maiden. This was incidental to the department’s work on the production of “Confidential Agent,” the Charles Boyer-Lauren Bacall starring film now at the Strand. For several weeks before sets were ready and the cast finally chosen, questions by the dozen came into the research department even though “Confidential Agent,” is not a period nor a costume film. Why all the fuss and bother? Because Jack L. Warner, executive producer at the studios, insists on accuracy and authenticity as far as possible within the limits of dramatic license. Endless Details “Confidential Agent” is set in England in the Fall of 1937. It is*a mystery-drama of mood and action. There were many details for the research department to settle for the production department. For example, what kind of a wash-room would there be in an exclusive road-house on the highway from Dover to London? What did a Spanish passport look like in 1937? What kind of road signs were in use then? What does the third class bar on a Channel steamer look like? The customs shed at Dover? What style of identification would be used by an English taxidriver? Could you have newspaper streamers on a London bus? A writer challenged the use of the word ‘“roadhouse” in England. Dr. Lissauer countered with the Oxford Eng ee lish dictionary definition, “a_ wayside inn or hotel.” Production experts wanted photographs of London streets, London hotels, London types, and London houses in 1937. Research provided them at once from their files. Mat 202 — 30c Katina Paxinou, Peter Lorre and Dan Seymour, are plotting assorted crime and intrigue in the above scene from Warner Bros.’ latest adventure romance, "Confidential Agent,” currently at the Strand. Charles Boyer and Lauren Bacall co-star as the film's romantic interest. Still 651-518 Mat 101 — 15c¢ Charles Boyer and Lauren Bacall in a dramatic moment in Warners’ new hit drama, ''Confidential Agent,'' at the Strand. The art director, Leo Kuter, wanted to have topical signs made for use in street scenes on buses and_ trucks. Research gave him “Pygmalion at: the Old® Vic “Europe’s Dictators,” and “Ts Hitler A Menace?”’ The research department gave the Earl Hays Press in Hollywood, a concern that wil] print you a newspaper or a birth-certificate from Istanboul, if they use them there, exact details of the Spanish passport and you can see Charles Boyer using it in one cf the early scenes of the picture. For details of the washroom, the researchers delved into the novel on which the film is based, “Confidential Agent,” by Graham Greene, and used his description. That’s basic material and should be right. As for the matter of a fellow whistling to a dame in 1788, that is co-incidental but Lauren Bacall seemed to have planted an idea in one researcher’s mind and he had to find out. Peter Lorre Thinks About House-Haunting . Peter Lorre, who plays an important role in support of co-stars Charles Boyer and Lauren Bacall in Warners’ “Confidential Agent,”’ now at the Strand, looked troubled when he reported for work at the Warner Bros. studios one day and director Herman Shumlin, always very considerate of his players, asked the cause. Sadly Lorre told him that he had _ bought this little house, wanted to get in, but the people just couldn’t or wouldn’t move out. Shumlin reflected for a moment. “Got it, Peter. Why don’t you just haunt them out?”